That does bring up a better question, what has given Hinduism its staying power? Perhaps, perhaps not, a person from the regions of India would know that in its contrast to something like Christianities staying power.

(It actually did come off to me weird that most of the responses early in this thread were atheism backed and not merely in contrast to other religions like Islam/Animalistic faiths n so on.)

"Allow there to be a spectrum in all that you see" - Neil Degrasse Tyson

(29-01-2016 08:31 AM)Tomasia Wrote: I'm not even sure what "God's pre-designed selection" means. Do you mean it sort of like "Methinks it is like a weasel" was "pre-designed" into the weasel program, to make the end result given enough time, inevitable? Though the algorithm and the process requires no tinkering after it's set to run.

If I did believe this, would it negate natural selection, I don't think so.

It would utterly negate it unless the environment was controlled throughout the process.

But .... the universe was intelligently designed for weasels.
I mean, there are weasels, like everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
You didn't watch the debate ?

Insufferable know-it-all. It is objectively immoral to kill innocent babies. Please stick to the guilty babies.

(29-01-2016 08:43 AM)TheInquisition Wrote: You're talking about social influences, I could care less about that, I'm referring to processes. What would get you to a closer depiction of reality? A process of faith or a process that prioritizes physical evidence evidence over subjective evidence?

What I would say is this. If you took all the various peer reviewed articles, that prioritizes and tested all the physical evidence, all you’d have is an accurate set of dots, for a depiction that involves even more dots, and filling in those connections. When I hear atheists depictions of reality, those renderings seem entirely distorted, so out of touch, disconnected, fractured. That it’s not surprising that when it comes to actually forming a depiction of reality, it’s where you find the clinging to a lack of belief. It’s to say I can only put a few splotches of paint on the canvas, but can’t bring myself to paint anymore than that. Perhaps many of those splotches are accurately placed, but to imagine the splotches as the whole is distortion of the real thing.

As Wittgenstien would put it: “We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.” And it’s life more so than anything else that animates our depiction of reality.” The coldness we endure often projected in those depictions.

There’s an external reality out there, but we are trapped in our minds, left with only creating a mental abstraction of it, with colors, and brush, handed to us by circumstances. Our awareness of ourself being the most intimate reality we can ever know. And we know already, that lack of interaction, problematic interactions with others, our fundamental relationship have considerable effect on our depictions of reality, on human life, how we understand others, which also compose reality. Reality is not merely about the properties of a star, it’s even more so about us.

If we were to take individuals such as yourself, and were able to project your depictions of life into a film, that depiction would be so disconnected to the real thing, so much a distortion to the real thing, that it’s likely unfair to even call it a depiction of reality.

What seems to be the common tendency is to find escape in this concept of “objective reality”, to erase and dissolve themselves completely from this depiction. It’s perhaps why folks such as yourself, refer to subjective reality as it’s a dirty word, though this subjective reality is much closer to home, and inescapable, and is the only reality we will ever know. There seems to be something so aesthetically pleasing in imagining this sort of fictional identify of an objective self. And the life trajectory that led to you fancying this, probably has a lot to do with you’re unbeliever, and the trajectory that led me to be connected to that intimate life I know well, is perhaps what led me to belief.

It’s also entirely clear that that one’s atheism, one’s perception of reality, godless or otherwise, is a matter of personal identity. That these beliefs sustain your sense of self. The atheists seems just as entrenched in his own personal beliefs, as the theists. As protective of them, as a matter of life and limb, just like everyone else. And just the same, that your depictions of reality are rooted in who you are, and how you want to see yourself. But the problem is that we’re inclined more to believe in a false and noble image of ourselves, than to accept the messy reality of who we are. And these implications have considerable effect on our depictions of reality.

"Tell me, muse, of the storyteller who has been thrust to the edge of the world, both an infant and an ancient, and through him reveal everyman." ---Homer the aged poet.

"In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

(29-01-2016 08:31 AM)Tomasia Wrote: I'm not even sure what "God's pre-designed selection" means. Do you mean it sort of like "Methinks it is like a weasel" was "pre-designed" into the weasel program, to make the end result given enough time, inevitable? Though the algorithm and the process requires no tinkering after it's set to run.

If I did believe this, would it negate natural selection, I don't think so.

It would utterly negate it unless the environment was controlled throughout the process.

How was the "Weasel program" controlled throughout the process, other than making sure the electricity stayed on? Once started it seems to been able to operate on it own, without any tinkering through out the process?

"Tell me, muse, of the storyteller who has been thrust to the edge of the world, both an infant and an ancient, and through him reveal everyman." ---Homer the aged poet.

"In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

(28-01-2016 01:46 PM)TheInquisition Wrote: It's subjective feels all the way down. That is simply insufficient and irrational.

It always seems to come down to the subjective, but never objective evidence free from biased interpretation that is the motive for belief.

The thing about biases is that people tend not to be able to recognize they're own bias. We're all trapped in our minds, trying to make sense of a reality outside of it, in conjunctions with the perspective of others, driven by a variety of complex external and internal factors. When we rationalize our motives we tend to settle for the most convenient, most flattering explanations, preserve our false autonomy.

Why is it that a man believes that Sandy Hook was staged? The person on the outside will have an entirely different observation than the one on the inside. The person who believes it was staged, will claim that the evidence points to this, that his diligence led him to uncover the truth, and that others are blind sheep. Many atheists (many theists too) subscribe to similar clean and overly polished narrative of themselves, the stuff of fiction, heroic and saintly. But the truth is far more complex and messy, and probably uncomfortable.

You want to imagine that there's something so dynamically different going on with the theists that what's going on with you, rather than seeking a perspective that's as much true for them as it is for you. Your relationships with religious people, with atheists, with your parents and siblings, etc.. contribute a great deal to your disbelief, as mines contribute to my beliefs. If we exchanged these aspects you'd likely be a theist, and I'd likely be an atheists.

Just like it seems to be easier to be an atheists for those who have negative view of religion, the same way factors like 9/11 drove the popularity of The God Delusion. If you views are generally positive, it's probably a bit harder to be an atheist. If you had a shitty atheist father, you might one day find yourself in the pews. If you had a shitty christian one, you might one day end up an anti-theist. If you identify or seek to identify with folks like Dennet, or Dawkins, or Tyson, if you feel some affinity for their types, than atheism because more appealing. If the people you get, if the people that get you are religious, if those who sense of life mirrors your own, you'll likely be a believer.

If believing or not believing in Christianity were just a simple choice for someone to make, where they would look at the evidence on both sides and choose what makes rational sense to them, then people would be free to take it or leave it, no harm no foul. In that case, I believe, people would be leaving it in droves.

The fact is, people are mentally and psychologically coerced by the religion itself to not give it up and to not even dare question whether it's valid or not. You've got a heavy stick at the back end threatening eternal damnation or curses from God here on earth, and a nice fat carrot at the front end promising comfort, protection, answered prayers and the grand prize of all, eternal bliss in heaven.

(29-01-2016 08:40 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Those are not my words, so I'm not even sure what you mean by a "higher plane of being". I agree with the statement that consciousness arose out of natural selection.

You have in the past, not those words, no.

But yesterday you said you find the notion of natural selection, as in the human consciousnesses and universe happening out of natural events absurd, AND stated it is a reason you "believe."

That's not true. I don't find evolution or natural selection absurd.

I said I find the alternative to theism absurd, I also stated that find the idea that we're product of a cosmic accident unbelievable as well. But that's more to do with the question and why something rather than nothing, but this had nothing to do with the theory of evolution.

The same way that claims about abiogenesis, how life arose from non-life. Even if someone where to claim that aliens implanted life on earth, or God waved his magical wand and placed it there, this would have next to nothing to do with theory of evolution, or cast doubt on natural selection, even if true.

Quote:If god created the universe and allowed for it to evolve without direct influence, it still isn't the same notion as natural selection. A supernatural force here still put forth the outcomes, not a natural occurrence.

A supernatural force could have created an iPhone, whose internal working and functions are entirely natural. Just like a supernatural force could setup a lottery, and which uses the same natural mechanisms as the traditional lottery. A supernatural forces could have made a variety of purely natural continent features, that those who don't believe in such a force, would say just are, than once the process gets started that given enough time and space, that conscious creatures, with creative, moral, and intellectual capacities are inevitable, just like the winner of a lottery is inevitable given enough time and chances.

Which to me is just like saying that given enough time and chances a variety of independent species would develop eyes, like they did over forty times.

"Tell me, muse, of the storyteller who has been thrust to the edge of the world, both an infant and an ancient, and through him reveal everyman." ---Homer the aged poet.

"In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

(29-01-2016 08:49 AM)ClydeLee Wrote: You have in the past, not those words, no.

But yesterday you said you find the notion of natural selection, as in the human consciousnesses and universe happening out of natural events absurd, AND stated it is a reason you "believe."

That's not true. I don't find evolution or natural selection absurd.

I said I find the alternative to theism absurd, I also stated that find the idea that we're product of a cosmic accident unbelievable as well. But that's more to do with the question and why something rather than nothing, but this had nothing to do with the theory of evolution.

The same way that claims about abiogenesis, how life arose from non-life. Even if someone where to claim that aliens implanted life on earth, or God waved his magical wand and placed it there, this would have next to nothing to do with theory of evolution, or cast doubt on natural selection, even if true.

Quote:If god created the universe and allowed for it to evolve without direct influence, it still isn't the same notion as natural selection. A supernatural force here still put forth the outcomes, not a natural occurrence.

A supernatural force could have created an iPhone, whose internal working and functions are entirely natural. Just like a supernatural force could setup a lottery, and which uses the same natural mechanisms as the traditional lottery. A supernatural forces could have made a variety of purely natural continent features, that those who don't believe in such a force, would say just are, than once the process gets started that given enough time and space, that conscious creatures, with creative, moral, and intellectual capacities are inevitable, just like the winner of a lottery is inevitable given enough time and chances.

Which to me is just like saying that given enough time and chances a variety of independent species would develop eyes, like they did over forty times.

You stated you think it's absurd our human level of consciousness has arisen out of this chance, this type of natural phenomenon.

To you, for whatever pegged reason, you think it's something different. It's all interconnected by the origination process though.

Even in that idea, it's also a strange subset of Christianity that has sprung up while trying to reconcile new information. It was stated eloquently by Hitchens that if one believes God did actually speak to humanity in some essences or speak to chosen people/half a son come to earth, it just happens that the god set things into the universe and happened to pinpoint, okay now this mostly literate section of this specific planet is where my chosen people and chosen son will go. & that constitutes the evidence I give to the population. Christianity survives by evolving to thoughts like this, but the implications aren't actually thought out. That's just details people don't want to care about. So they don't speak about that because God is "mysterious"

"Allow there to be a spectrum in all that you see" - Neil Degrasse Tyson

(29-01-2016 09:19 AM)Chas Wrote: It would utterly negate it unless the environment was controlled throughout the process.

How was the "Weasel program" controlled throughout the process, other than making sure the electricity stayed on? Once started it seems to been able to operate on it own, without any tinkering through out the process?

The weasel example is not an example of natural selection.
Unlike natural selection, the example has a goal or target.

What it is is an illustration of the power of cumulative selection.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

(29-01-2016 08:43 AM)TheInquisition Wrote: You're talking about social influences, I could care less about that, I'm referring to processes. What would get you to a closer depiction of reality? A process of faith or a process that prioritizes physical evidence evidence over subjective evidence?

What I would say is this. If you took all the various peer reviewed articles, that prioritizes and tested all the physical evidence, all you’d have is an accurate set of dots, for a depiction that involves even more dots, and filling in those connections. When I hear atheists depictions of reality, those renderings seem entirely distorted, so out of touch, disconnected, fractured. That it’s not surprising that when it comes to actually forming a depiction of reality, it’s where you find the clinging to a lack of belief. It’s to say I can only put a few splotches of paint on the canvas, but can’t bring myself to paint anymore than that. Perhaps many of those splotches are accurately placed, but to imagine the splotches as the whole is distortion of the real thing.

As Wittgenstien would put it: “We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.” And it’s life more so than anything else that animates our depiction of reality.” The coldness we endure often projected in those depictions.

There’s an external reality out there, but we are trapped in our minds, left with only creating a mental abstraction of it, with colors, and brush, handed to us by circumstances. Our awareness of ourself being the most intimate reality we can ever know. And we know already, that lack of interaction, problematic interactions with others, our fundamental relationship have considerable effect on our depictions of reality, on human life, how we understand others, which also compose reality. Reality is not merely about the properties of a star, it’s even more so about us.

If we were to take individuals such as yourself, and were able to project your depictions of life into a film, that depiction would be so disconnected to the real thing, so much a distortion to the real thing, that it’s likely unfair to even call it a depiction of reality.

What seems to be the common tendency is to find escape in this concept of “objective reality”, to erase and dissolve themselves completely from this depiction. It’s perhaps why folks such as yourself, refer to subjective reality as it’s a dirty word, though this subjective reality is much closer to home, and inescapable, and is the only reality we will ever know. There seems to be something so aesthetically pleasing in imagining this sort of fictional identify of an objective self. And the life trajectory that led to you fancying this, probably has a lot to do with you’re unbeliever, and the trajectory that led me to be connected to that intimate life I know well, is perhaps what led me to belief.

It’s also entirely clear that that one’s atheism, one’s perception of reality, godless or otherwise, is a matter of personal identity. That these beliefs sustain your sense of self. The atheists seems just as entrenched in his own personal beliefs, as the theists. As protective of them, as a matter of life and limb, just like everyone else. And just the same, that your depictions of reality are rooted in who you are, and how you want to see yourself. But the problem is that we’re inclined more to believe in a false and noble image of ourselves, than to accept the messy reality of who we are. And these implications have considerable effect on our depictions of reality.